This Week in Racing History (May 3-9)

This Week in Racing History

May 3 - Ken Tyrrell, former F1 team owner, born (1924).

May 4 - Wolfgang von Trips, F1 racer, born in Cologne, Germany (1928).

May 5 - Jimmy Murphy, first American to win a Grand Prix event in Europe, is killed in a 100 mile race at Syracuse, New York. He will be awarded that year's AAA National Championship posthumously (1924).

May 6 - Peter DePaolo drives a 4WD Miller to sixth place in the Tripoli Grand Prix. First use of 4-wheel drive in a Grand Prix racer (1934).

May 7 - Mike Spence crashes at Indianapolis in an STP Lotus 56 turbine racer. He will die later that evening from his injuries (1968).

May 8 - Rudolf Uhlenhaut, Mercedes racing technical director during the 1930s and 1950s, dies (1989).

May 9 - Pedro Rodriguez and Jackie Oliver drive their Wyer-Gulf Porsche 917K to victory in the 1000 Kilometer race at Spa, Belgium. Their average speed of 154.8 mph still stands today as the fastest road race ever (1971).

Correction: The speed record set by Frank Lockhart in 1927, occured on May 7, not May 2, as I printed last week.

Previous installments of This Week in Racing History can be found at the Motorsport News International website (http://www.motorsport.com/).

Michael Stucker stucker$@sugar-land.spc.slb.com Remove "$" from email address above. Copyright Michael J. Stucker 1998